LEGS - Long Eaton Grammar School - History

1870 - Education Act (Gladstone’s Liberal Government)

1880 - Free Compulsory Elementary Education introduced for all children aged 5-10

1899 - School Leaving Age raised from 10 to 12

1902 – Education Act – creates Local Education Authorities (LEAs) to be responsible for building and maintaining the free Elementary Schools and, for the first time, state-maintained Secondary Schools (which charge fees, so only better-off parents can afford to send their children to them, as with the fee-charging private, grammar or ‘public’ schools).

1905 – Professor Michael Sadler appointed by the new Derbyshire County Council LEA to report and make recommendations on the provision of education in Long Eaton. Sadler meets Samuel Clegg (an instructor at Long Eaton Pupil Teachers Centre) and is impressed by Clegg’s devotion to education and the broader culture. He later describes Clegg as a ‘high-voltage cable, electrifying and vivifying the local community’. Sadler recommends the creation of a new Higher Elementary School & Pupil Teachers’ Centre for Long Eaton with Clegg as Headteacher.

1906 – Sadler’s report is accepted. Derbyshire County Council commits itself to establishing a new Higher Elementary School in Long Eaton. Land which has been bought by local donation for such an eventuality will be used and shared with a new Carnegie Library (fund-raising committee Hon Sec – Samuel Clegg!) The site (then known as the ‘Gorse Holmes’) is to become the centre of a new ‘Cultural Democracy’ in Long Eaton. The local Cooperative Movement is instrumental in all of this. These values of education, culture and democracy are immortalised in the magnificent stained glass window in the County Library.

1907 – Mr G.H.Widdows, County Surveyor of Schools, is appointed architect for the new school. It is designed to be both a distinctive architectural achievement and to allow for expansion as necessary. (The school becomes a listed building in the 1960s.)

Nationally, free secondary places are introduced for the cleverest Elementary School children (later known as ‘scholarships’). The intention is that a quarter of all places should be reserved for poor children (although in practice less than one in twenty!)

1909 – Building of the new school begins (final cost - £14,900!)

1910 – Long Eaton Higher Elementary School & Pupil Teachers’ Centre opens on 29th October with Samuel Clegg as the first Head. (Drawing is to be a central part of the curriculum – the important local lace trade needs young people ‘skilled with eye & hand’. Samuel Clegg is an art & design specialist – as Head his study is ground floor room 5, but as a teacher his classroom is directly upstairs, the specially-designed iron & glass Art studio.)

1912 – First ‘School Annual’ is published, a mixture of reports, reviews, poetry and illustration; thereafter published annually (until the 1920s).

1913 – The School is redesignated – Long Eaton County Secondary School (LECSS). A certain Mr F.L.Attenborough is appointed to the staff (he was a former pupil teacher at Clegg’s Pupil Teachers’ Centre elsewhere in the town before the school was built); he later marries Clegg’s daughter, Mary, becoming father of (Sir) David and (Lord) Richard Attenborough – the famous brothers are the grandchildren of Samuel Clegg. (There is a third grandson, John). Clegg’s son (Sir) Alec is to become the nationally renowned Chief Education Officer for the East Riding of Yorkshire.

1914 – Start of the Great War.

1916 – School Dinners are introduced at Long Eaton (4 old pence each, about 2p today). Most vegetables are actually grown on site! The kitchen is what is to become room 15, the Dining Hall room 14.

1917 – A typical school day begins at 9.30am, dinnertime is from 12.40pm until 2pm, afternoon school finishes at 4pm.

1918 – School Leaving Age is raised from twelve to fourteen. End of the Great War.

1919 – Increasing pupil numbers necessitate construction of “temporary” prefabricated hut accommodation – “temporarily” in use until finally demolished in …1999!

1926 – Hadow Report – proposes separate schools for infants and juniors and an exam (later to become known as the 11+) to determine what type of secondary education would suit pupils best.

1930 – Sudden death of Samuel Clegg (who was working in school only two days before). The end of an era for education in Long Eaton.

Clegg is replaced by Mr F.E.Roberts (chosen from a field of 141 applicants!). The schoolchildren give him the (affectionate?) nickname of “Drac” – supposedly because of his appearance, always in a black academic gown). Additions are begun to the School building (the roof is removed from both ‘wings’ of the building, new first floor rooms built and the roof replaced – the ‘joins’ are still visible). These new rooms (rooms 11,12,13,18,19,20) include what will become the School Library and the second Artroom.

1931 – Roberts introduces Prefects (which had always been resisted by Clegg).

1934 – First issue of “The Gossamer” school magazine ( the title is supposedly derived from the old name of the school site – “Gorse Holmes”).

1936 – (Death of King George V; Edward VIII becomes King, but abdicates after ten months; George VI becomes King.)

1939 – Start of World War Two.

1944 – Education Act, finally implements Hadow Report of 1926 – free secondary education for all pupils in either Grammar Schools, Secondary Technical or Secondary Modern Schools, selected by examination at 11+.

1945 – Long Eaton County Secondary School becomes Long Eaton Grammar School.

1946 – Two more huts added to ‘temporary’ accommodation.

1949 -1950 – Old canteen upstairs converted into room 13 and 14 by addition of folding screen. THese rooms were used by the film society and the old kitchen used as the projection room. New canteen built (adjacent to Tamworth Road – later front car park). At about this time Murals in ground floor classrooms ‘Chaucer Room’, ‘Tudor Room’ & ‘Milton Room’ (painted under Clegg’s supervision in the 1920’s) are painted over as was the majority of the oak panelling.

1951 – GCE O & A Level examinations are introduced.

1955-6 - Most of the original dark stained wood panelling in rooms and corridors is painted over – in dull grey!

1957 – Headteacher Roberts retires, replaced by Mr G.D.B.Gray.

1958 – New Science Block built (ground & first floor).

1960 – School Jubilee Celebrations.

1964 – A new Secondary Modern School is built on land south of the Grammar School & west of the Erewash Canal – named Roper School after local Councillor Roper.

1968 – Craft Block built (later Technology and Art); also new administration Block (with new Head’s office – and separate staffrooms for male & female teachers!

1972-3 – Amalgamation of Long Eaton Grammar School with Roper School to create a new Comprehensive School – named Long Eaton School.

1974 – Gray retires; replaced by G.W.R.(‘Denny’) Davies.

1982 – Davies retires; replaced by R.E.Orriss.

1989 – School renamed - Long Eaton Community School.

1999 – Becomes The Long Eaton School.

2001 – Orriss retires; Mr R. Vasey becomes Head.

2002 – Mr Vasey announces that £15m PFI credits have been released by the Government – for a new Long Eaton School!

(History compiled by Mr J. Eley)

2006 - Tuesday February 14th is the last day that pupils were taught in the Tamworth Road site of the school. The old grade 2 listed building to be retained and sold to a developer and the rest of the school is to be demolished. Pupils will now be taught at a brand new school building adjacent to the old Roper School and is accessible from Thoresby Road and via a new footbridge over the canal, from Tamworth Road. The Roper school will be demolished.